Rhiannon
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Re: My problem
May 27, 2002, 10:09
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oi less of the anti-wolf sentiment there. They've never been documented as attacking a person, they're quite shy really.
I know nothing much is known about the Neolithic causewayed camps, but am I right in thinking they are more obviously positioned for their context in the wider landscape, and Iron Age forts are sited at better defensive spots?
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FourWinds
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Re: My problem
May 27, 2002, 10:29
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Sorry, the wolf reference was one of competition and threat to herds and not personal threat.
I love wolfies! I used to have a timber wolf cross GSD.
The causewayed enclosures do seem to have been more landscape revering than defensive. Obviously, the are hillforts where this could be said to be part of the sight selection too.
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BrigantesNation
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Context of ancient sites
May 27, 2002, 12:13
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Actually, I disagree (not strongly though) I'm starting to think that what we have is a view of history which is "twisted" by the remaining evidence and in some cases by our interpretation of the evidence.
The early "ritual" monuments were chosen for their context in the environment and as such were not chosen for their particular defensive qualities.
However, places to live WOULD have been chosen for defensive reasons (as well as natural shelter etc.)
When the Iron Age came along a significant number os those earlier dwelling sites that were defensible etc. were re-used and we think of them as Iron age or later.
In the case of stones and ritual sites, those that were positioned in locations that became strategic in the Iron Age will have been used in the building of forts etc. Often removing all evidence of the previous use.
By looking at the recognised artifacts from a particular period only, we may be limiting our knowledge.
For example, many of the Ieron Age hill forts of the south are often looked at only in there iron age context. little is said or known of the sites use and purpose in the bronze age or earlier.
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RiotGibbon
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Re: My problem
May 27, 2002, 12:33
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>Don't you like burial mounds?
shudders at the thought ...
12 Bar would be welcome in my house ... everybody else is well pissed off with them ... I love 'em, me ...
RG
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Euan
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Re: Vitrified Forts
Feb 28, 2003, 19:33
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Nothing is 'wrong' with vitrified forts. Several careful archaeological excavations have shown them to be badly burned examples of stone-walled hillforts which had timber framing incorporated within their cores. Accidental burning at the end of the site's occupation produced the fusing of parts of this rubble core. The dating is slightly controversial but mainly because TL dating for the burning somehow conflicts with the radiocarbon dating for the construction and use of the sites. The finds support the latter time frame (based on C14) and suggest a period of construction in the late Bronze and early Iron Ages, approximately between about the 8th century BC (perhaps earlier in a few cases) and the 3rd.
Timber-framing of Iron Age hillfort stone walls and earthen ramparts is quite widespread in Europe and Britain but in most cases their destruction by fire does not produce vitrification. I suspect that the prevalence of the phenomenon in Scotland is explained by the use there of pure dry rubble in the wall cores, without any earth and other rubbish. In this case, when the fire in the superstructures took hold (accidentally or through enemy attack), and the high wall started to collapse, the already burning and partly carbonised beams became exposed to the wind and started what were in effect small blast furnaces in places, fusing and melting the adjacent rubble.
No example has EVER been found, to my knowledge, of a vitrified wall which was burned at the beginning of the site's use; always it is a destructive fire which wrecks the site.
Hope this helps. Euan MacKie
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FourWinds
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Re: Vitrified Forts
Mar 01, 2003, 10:20
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But the Irish (who were masters of the stone fort in the west especially) never used wooden cores and more often than not they used pure rubble cores.
There are one or two vitrified sites in Ireland, but they are an exception to the norm if it was accidental burning of a wooden a core that caused it.
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